On October 7, the demonization began with St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports writer Bryan Burwell, whose column demonized the entire country, as he claimed these words were Limbaugh’s: “I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.” Burwell then added: “I know how those words play out in Idiot America. They are embraced as gospel.” But NFL players wouldn’t tolerate them, he said. No one asked them to tolerate them, and no one in the media seemed to ask Burwell to actually verify them with an airdate or an audio clip.

When the Post-Dispatch backed away from the claim, Burwell was completely unashamed of his recklessness: “So what are we left with? Well, essentially, I think we just threw a deck chair off the Titanic. There is still a huge pile of polarizing, bigoted debris stacked up on the deck of the good ship Limbaugh that he can’t deny or even remotely distance himself from.”

The Post-Dispatch found the quote came from a book by liberal author Jack Huberman called 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (a concept and title ripped off from author and former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg, whose original was 101 People Who Are Really Screwing Up America). Huberman has also written the books Bushit and The Bush-Hater Handbook, edited the book The Quotable Atheist, and has titled his weblog “Well to the Left of Attila the Hun.” But he was an agreeable source for the liberal media.

The national onslaught began on Monday, October 12, when MSNBC welcomed Dave Zirin of the radical magazine The Nation to spread the quote that Limbaugh believed “slavery had its merits.” Zirin, who was described only as a “sportswriter,” charged that players “don’t want an owner who has said slavery was a good thing because it made the streets safer.” Anchor Contessa Brewer accepted the claim as true, wondering about Limbaugh’s bid: “Is there anything the NFL commissioner, or anybody else for that matter, can do to stop it?” Zirin added that NFL players “don’t want to see a swine owning a Ram.” He closed the interview by deriding the radio host as someone who has an “open, publicly-stated contempt for people with dark skin.” MSNBC didn’t ask him why Limbaugh has often used black professor Walter Williams as a substitute host on his radio show.

Later that day, MSNBC’s David Shuster repeated a version of the fabricated quote. “An NFL spokesman says the Rams have not agreed to sell to anyone and that there are other bidders. Meantime, the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Farrior says Limbaugh should be denied the privilege of owning an NFL franchise for comments like ‘slavery had its merits.’” The on-screen graphic ran the fake quote “Slavery Had Its Merits” and the source was “Cited by James Farrior, Pittsburgh Steelers.”

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez joined in on Monday afternoon: “Limbaugh's perceived racist diatribes are too many to name. Here’s a sample. He once declared that ‘slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.’” The on-screen graphic offered this incredibly vague footnote “Rush Limbaugh On The Radio.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Sanchez returned to the subject, not to retract the quote or offer any evidence of its authenticity, but merely to note that they had run the quote the day before and read Rush Limbaugh’s denial that he ever uttered the quote. Sanchez dismissed the idea of accuracy as germane, as long as black liberals remained offended: “Obviously, that does not take away the fact that there are other quotes which have been attributed to Rush Limbaugh, which many people in the African-American community and many other minority communities do find offensive.”

MSNBC merely repeated the phony quote on Tuesday. Anchor Tamron Hall said NFL players “cite Limbaugh’s litany of racially charged remarks over the years and those include, quote, him saying this, ‘Slavery has its merits.’ That is a quote.” Hall then had the audacity to claim that “David [Shuster] and I are very careful about this, because you do not know a person’s heart. You cannot speak for a person’s motivation. But you can use their words in defining their character.”

Hall’s guest, Karen Hunter, compounded the fake quotes: “He even said that Dr. Martin Luther King, his killer, James Earl Ray should have a medal given to him, a medal of honor given to him. He says, ‘We miss you, James.‘” The absurd charge that Limbaugh praised the convicted killer of Martin Luther King also emerged from Jack Huberman’s 101 People book. On June 4, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow also used the fake quote: “When you get called racist by the guy who says the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. should get the Medal of Honor, consider yourself honored. Also, nauseated.”

Video created by How the World Works

The Media Offenders

OFFENDER:Casey Gane-McCalla on October 20, 2008, of NewsOne.com, slogan, “for Black America” It was only October 14, 2009, that he added a note about sourcing. Prior to this, he did not source any of the alleged quotes. This is the source of Charles Johnson’s “Top 10 Racist Limbaugh Quotes” link.

Link

Excerpt:It has come to my attention that some people are questioning the legitimacy of these quotes so I have decided to source them. Every quote was found in a book or reputable website.

Here’s Our Top 10 Racist Rush Limbaugh Quotes

1. I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

Source

Okay Rush, slavery was not a good thing for the millions of African Americans who were enslaved, raped and beaten. The streets weren’t at all safe for African Americans. Slavery not a bad thing? Someone should put Rush on a plantation for him to see how great it is. Keep on fear and race mongering Rush, you might get to Goebbels status.

Excerpt:(from the 0:05 mark to the 0:16 mark), video of Rick Sachez, CNN: “He once declared that slavery built the South: ‘I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.’”

OFFENDER:Max Blumenthal on March 3, 2009

Link

Excerpt:But given Limbaugh’s well-documented history of racial controversy, and Steele’s position as the Republican Party’s first African-American chairman, his apology is more significant than Gingrey’s. Limbaugh has, for example, mocked Obama as a “Halfrican-American” who should “become white“; he has called for a “posthumous Medal of Honor” for the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., James Earl Ray, and told an African-American caller, “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

E: Comment #1045, Sept. 21, 2009: Johnson, regarding comment #1044 from firepilot: There will be no retraction. The quote is disputed, but it has not been proven false. And there are plenty of other racist quotes that you seem to be just gliding right past that are NOT disputed.”

DENVER (BASN) -- It’s time to sound the Alarm, blow the horns, turn all-the-way-up the God father’s, Soul Brother Number 1's , the hardest working man in show biz-nesses, "Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud . . . the real Black National Anthem.

[…]

"I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark . . . ."

And, for that MLK wise-crack, the "bone in the nose" line . . . "fuck you, and ya’ momma Rush."

That’s straight, with no chaser - from Desi Cortez.

OFFENDER:Zennie Abraham of San Francisco Chronicle, October 13, 2009. He is skeptical of the James Earl Ray quote, but not the slavery one. He too links to Casey Gane-McCalla’s item.

Link

Excerpt:Rush is quick to point to a crime where (sadly) black youth were beating up a white young man on a bus (and it wasn't even because he was white), but turns a blind eye to any news of a hate crime against blacks.

He's compared NFL players to the gang members the crips and bloods, using the time worn code words for "black gang member".

Rush has made so many anti-back statements, there's a "top 10" list complied by Casey Gane-McCalla of Newsone in 2008:

1. I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

2. Zennie's note: There is some question over whether Rush actually said this comment but it's all over the Internet. This entry is mine, not that of the original blogger.

OFFENDER:Detroit Free-Press’s Drew Sharp, in USA Today on October 11, 2009. Amended on October 14, 2009 with the “slavery” quote excised from the story

Link

Excerpt:
By Drew Sharp, Detroit Free Press

Editor's note: A quote that has been widely attributed to Rush Limbaugh has been removed from the original version of this column after Limbaugh denied saying it. USA TODAY could not verify the accuracy of the quote.

The NFL should pass on Rush.

Nobody's suggesting that Rush Limbaugh doesn't have the right to pursue an NFL franchise. They're his millions and he can spend them any way he chooses, but that doesn't mean the NFL must accept the conservative political entertainer's check. The league cannot be that hamstrung in finding deep-pocketed financiers that it's left with no alternative but embracing someone whose occupational practice is making people feel more comfortable within their own prejudices.

OFFENDER:USAToday.com’s Sean Leahy in The Huddle blog on October 8. Unlike Sharp’s item, no correction has yet been appended.

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Excerpt:
At issue is not only Limbaugh's standing as an outspoken right-wing talk-show host. His controversial comments on race, including a remark that led to his exit as an ESPN NFL analyst, are inciting the negative reaction.

Among Limbaugh's comments:

"Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

"The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in (Donovan) McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve."

OFFENDER:Bryan Burwell, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on October 7, 2009

Link

Excerpt:
Editor's note (10/14):

A quote from the following column attributed to Rush Limbaugh about the merits of slavery in the United States came from the 2006 book "101 People Who Are Really Screwing America" by John Huberman. The book does not provide specific details about the quote.

Limbaugh, who is part of a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams, said Monday that he did not make that statement, which has been widely reported in recent days.

The Post-Dispatch continues to research the origin of the quote. -- Reid Laymance, Sports Editor

OFFENDER:Buck Harvey of San Antonio Express-News/MySanAntonio.com. Posted October 11, 2009, no correction yet added or the fake quote retracted.

Link

Excerpt:
Still, Limbaugh wouldn't fit in this exclusive club. No other NFL owner is as public with his politics, and no other NFL owner has said, for example, what Limbaugh said after Ron Artest went into the Detroit stands in November of 2004:

“Call it the TBA, the Thug Basketball Association, and stop calling them teams. Call 'em gangs.”

Those who live in San Antonio know firsthand how flawed his stereotype was. The champion that season, after all, was the Spurs gang.

Limbaugh would later have a similar opinion about the business he wants to run. “The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”

There is this: “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”

And this: “I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

There are listeners who love Limbaugh, and there are radio execs who love his ratings. But not many Dittoheads wear helmets. Being drafted by someone who still sees the merits of slavery might feel like, well, he owns you.

OFFENDER:Buck Harvey in an October 13, 2009 blog entry

Link

Excerpt:
Rush Limbaugh has denied saying one quote in a string of them that I used in Sunday's column. I found this particular passage in a story that appeared a few days earlier in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

I contacted an editor there, and he says they will run this in Wednesday's editions:

"A quote in Bryan Burwell's column Oct. 7 attributed to Rush Limbaugh about the merits of slavery in the United States came from the 2006 book "101 people who are really screwing up America" by John Huberman. The book does not provide specific details about the quote.

"Limbaugh, who is part of a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams, said Monday that he did not make that statement, which has been widely reported in recent days.

"The Post-Dispatch continues to research the origin of the quote."

I tend to believe Limbaugh on this one. After all, he's said so many other inflammatory things that he hasn't denied. That's the root of his problem now, and the crux of my Sunday column. It isn't one statement he has said that will make NFL owners hesitate -- it's the polarizing aspect that has earned Limbaugh the very money he wants to invest.